Driving from Los Angeles to Sedona, Arizona – and back to LA – on I-10 last week, I was periodically reminded by signs on the road that the freeway is the Pearl Harbor Memorial Freeway.
Sitting in the United Airlines Club in Tokyo on February 8, after my flight from LA, waiting for my connecting flight back to Hong Kong, I was flooded with glowing news stories about the recent visit of US Defense Secretary Mad Dog Mattis to Japan. I couldn’t help again wondering why? I say again, because the foreign-policy rationale of the U.S.-Japan defense treaty alliance is a question I repeatedly raise and challenge in my books and discuss at length in Custom Maid War and Feasting Dragon, Starving Eagle.
The Defense Secretary said the US would stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Japan and that the U.S.-Japan security treaty applies to the Japanese administered Diaoyu Islands, which China claims. On a positive note, Mad Dog said that military maneuvers in the South China Sea would be discontinued.
China’s response? It tested a multiple warhead, nuclear-capable missile that has a 600-mile range and can reach targets in Japan. The DF-16 missile is launched from a mobile launch pad, making it hard to find before launch.
The fact is that America, with its only permanent overseas-based carrier group in Japan, with additional ships, planes and thousands of military personnel based in Japan, Guam, Singapore, Australia and South Korea, remains Asia’s biggest military power – one that is concerned that China is emerging as a long-term challenge. That is correct. So why not partner with China rather than Japan? That is what the Philippines, Malaysia and Australia are doing – distancing themselves from Japan – and America – and embracing China. Shouldn’t America be doing the same?
It makes no sense for America to keep upgrading its relationship with Japan in the hope that together they can contain China.
Just as America is coming to terms with Vietnam, and Germany has come to terms with its World War II follies, Japan must come to terms with its official hypocrisy and deception for its wartime role and atrocities in China and other countries it invaded – and apologize.
The Japanese are concerned about a new “Nixon shock” – the surprise 1972 rapprochement between China and the U.S. – this time concerning North Korea and China. It is long overdue. The long-term military relationship America is pursuing in Japan is unsustainable because it is unlikely that Japan’s aging society will be prepared or able to spend the money needed to maintain a robust military alliance down the road to contain China. A Trump shock realigning U.S. relationship in Asia is hopefully on the horizon and shall be brought to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s attention when he meets with President Trump tomorrow.